let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

im only posting this because within the past few days it has come to my attention that a few of you might have the wrong idea as to how i got my r/t the way it was, and why i got rid of everything,
so...here is the full story

i got the car about 3 and a half years ago...i really overpaid for it, but it had low miles, was a striped delete and had no options except cruise control....

i started modding the car a little here and a little there with whatever money i could manage...
my wife and i were working 2 full time job each, then a friend of ours got really sick, so i took over his job as well...then my landloard called me and wanted me to work for him for a while roofing houses...at this point my wife still had 2 full time jobs and i was working 3 full time jobs and 1 part time job...by full time im refering to 7 days a week
so this is how it went,
i would wake up at 1:00am, go do my job and my friends job...be home by 6:00 am...change clothes...then go do roofing from 6:00am until 11:30am...come home and eat lunch...then go to my other job from noon until 4pm...then start it all over again....
this was 7 days a week from january 1st until september 29th....and this isnt including all the work i do in my garage (motor swaps, tranny swaps, and regular maintnance that i dop for other people)
being that my wife and i were private contractors, there was no option for days off or vacations....
this extra money from working my ass off is what funded my red r/t project...
it took me 9 monthes to get all the parts and have everything done, this car was built to be a race car...nothing else...thats why i didnt wanna do any body work to it...so, it had:

JE 8.8:1 pistons
Eagle rods
clevite 77 rod and main bearings
polished and balanced crankshaft
new oil pump, new water pump, new ttiming belt, new idler pulleys, all new gaskets
block bored .020 over
ported head and intake manifold
crane #14 cams
crane valve springs
Brain Crower titanium valve spring retainers
stage 1 clutch
phantom grip lsd
srt4 boost gauge
3 gauge piller pod
autometer pro comp ultra lite air/fuel gauge
autometer pro comp ultra lite oil pressure gauge
autometer pro comp ulta lite fuel pressure guage
srt4 turbo/manifold
srt4 intercooler
2.5" intercooler pipe
mopar blow off valve
AGP adjustable wastegate actuator
solid motor mount inserts
sohc 3.55 tranny
2.5" exhaust
srt4 cat. convertor
srt4 rear section
srt4 rims
hurst short throw shifter
booger shifter bushings
koni adjustable struts
mopar high rate springs
prothane suspension bushings
addco 7/8" rear sway bar
accel 30# fuel injectors
custom fuel rail
begi fuel pressure regulator
(2) walboro 255lph fuel pumps
1/4" fuel return line
braided stainless steel brake lines
hahn racecraft map clamp
euro tail
clear side markers
twin halo headlights
lambo doors
and plenty more that i cant think of off the top of my head

there was well over $10,000 invested into the red r/t....not including the price of the car..every dime i made from 1 of the full time jobs went into that car
now, once the car was finally finished, i gotto enjoy it for exactly 259 miles until it developed a bad piston slap....i took the whole motor apart andtook it to the shop that did the bore/hone/balance work to it....now, what happened was that the shop didnt allow enough piston-to-cylinder wall clearance on 2 of the pistons so when the pistons would heat up and expand,they would stick to the cylinder wall...caused 2 of the pistons and 2 cylinder walls to get scored up really bad...so thanks to this wonderfull shop, it was gonna cost $75 to fix the block, $100 for new piston rings, and $350 for 2 new pistons...not counting all the gaskets and crap that would need to be replaced....
i had all intentions of fixing the problem to have my car back the way it was....3 days later, my wife and i got a notice that one of the companies we worked for was being sold and that all its employees were gonna lose their jobs....best part about it was that the notice was given only 2 weeks ahead of time...and the roofing season was about over, so there went another job....therefor, fixing the problem was a no go...
i ended up justdropping in a spare motor i had sitting in the garage that only needed a head gasket....this motor also had 180,000 miles on it...

with me and my wife loosing 4 jobs, and only having 1 job each...there was no way we could make it....we were only getting paid $1800 a month and that had to pay for $2800 worth of bills every month....there was no way it was gonna happen...
so instead of giving back the 2 cars we had loans on, losing our house, andscrewing up our credit, i decided to sell most of the parts that were on the red r/t, i only kept a few parts....
1month later i got a call from our boss about a job that just opened up that pays more....the job used to belong to a friend of ours that recently died in a car accident....
i took the job and now between our 2 jobs we are just barely abel to scrape by...

now the car has:
bored out .020 block (same one that got messed up in the 1st place)
HP .020 coated pistons
crane #14 cams, crane valve springs,w/ titanium retainers(kept from before)
megan udp
mopar perf. pcm
shorty headerw/ high flow cat. (took from the white r/t)
cai (made from left over intercooler pipe)
hurst sts (kept from before)
stage 1 clutch (kept from before)
and just a few other minor things....

the point of this, is that i am not some spoiled little rich kid, i worked my ass off to get what i did and instead of letting my wife worry about having a place to live and paying our bills, i did sumthing i really didnt want to do...but it had to be done
ive never had anything "handed" to me in my life, and went through alot for a car...
it doesnt matter what the car is worth, all that matters is how you want it to be

if i can get some money here and there, then i am gonna buy a bunch of the turbo stuff back and put it back on my car...hopefully by june or july

this is just so you all know where im comming from

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

Very nice spud. I dont know how it is to be down like that. I am "the spoiled rich kid" accept I go to college and have an agreement with my mom. I go to school and she pays for me to live. I am glad to hear after all of that you never gave up on the neon. I hope to have my neon done by june also for neon2k8. If you need anything let me know I got bunch of stuff laying around.

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

I allready told you my story in a pm spud, but I do know how it is... right now my wife is going to school and I'm having to pay about 1800 dollars in bills a month... Its hard, and scraping by is not fun what so ever... It takes alot to give something up, but like you said in another post the respect of your wife, somewhere to live, is much more important then any toy...

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

1st gen Neons - you can be mommys rich kid and spend major $$$

or you can take your time, innovate here, tinker there, and have a fun car for way less cash
than modding a lot of other cars.

thats why i like these cars so much.

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

well when my wife and i had all of our jobs, we got a bit carried away...i bought a 1998 durango for myself,she got a 2001 pt cruiser, and we got a bunch of stuff for our house.....
if we wouldnt have gotten fired, we would have easilymade over$100k for the year....now we are down to makeing only about $50k by the end of this year, so our situation went from great, to not soo good at all....

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

yeah spud i never thought you were a spoiled rich kid i always knew you had 3 and 4 jobs at a time

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

i know, but there are a few people that ican thinkof that didnt know that....
i just wanted to make sure that everything was clear

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

Spud, It's good to see someone who knows where the priorities are!!!! Hat's off to you!

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

sounds just about like me... work work work pay bills pay bills, then nothing to spend.. only reason i bought a bike was because i payed off my blazer 6 months early so i had extra cash to save

RE: let me tell you a story about my red r/t's past
 

well i only have just one job and it pays for everything i want. although, im buying more tools and such than anything since when i get back to Michigan fromAlaska i want to renovate my own house till then my car is on hold but i do already have most of the parts for the car just have to put them on